We don't yet know when our first stay is. We had planned to do a big thing at WDW in October, but then the layoff happened. Therefore, the vacation time isn't there right now.
The Grand Cal villas have very few units compared to the ones at WDW.
But I just pulled out my '09 and '10 planners to really look at points. Choosing a vacation time of Jan 10-20 (checking out the 20th) next year, staying in a studio.....
During that stay, the nights of the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th are going to cost 15 points each. The 15th and 16th are Fri and Sat and so would cost 27 points each (yowza). Then 17th, 18th, 19th, are back to 15 points each night.
Compared to the Wilderness Lodge Villas...Sun through Thursday are 13 points, Fri and Sat 20 points each. So each night isn't *that* far off, but when you start adding it up, with the extra 2 points per Sun-Thurs nights, and the extra 7 the other nights...the difference gets large.
SSR the same time is 12 points per night Sun-thurs, and only 18 points Fri and Saturdays...
Vero Beach during that time frame is Dream Season, and so it's 12/night Sun-thurs, and 21 per night fr and Sat.
etc etc, and I"m sure you already know all of that.
Now if you want to hear expensive....I don't have the info for 2010 right now, but the points chart for 2009 shows that during that same time THIS year, using points to stay at the Disneyland Hotel would have been considered PEAK season, and it would have been 30 points per night during the "cheap" nights, and 49 per night Fri and Sat. ouch.
Staying at the hotels, you get housekeeping each day. Staying in the villas, you don't. Staying in the villas you get some sort of kitchen (tiny, simple for the studio, bigger for the 1/2 bedrooms/grand villa). And that's about the limit of my knowledge of differences.
Once the Villas open, you'll hear more about what it's like there.
Anyway, for whatever reason, Disneyland tends to be more expensive than Disneyworld. Taxes, hotel fees, food, etc, all more expensive. And given the tiny size of the GCVillas, it just follows that they would be on the higher side too.